New hearing for New York's oldest inmate

ALBANY, N.Y. -- A new parole hearing for New York's oldest inmate was ordered weeks after a board refused to release him.

In an unusual move, the state Division of Parole ordered a new hearing for 89-year-old Charles Friedgood, a former Long Island doctor convicted in 1976 of murdering his wife.

A three-member board earlier this month rejected his fifth application for parole. But division spokesman Mark Johnson said today that the chairman and the executive staff reviewed the decision in light of a pending court case regarding Friedgood's denial of parole in 2005.

The hearing is expected to take place within several weeks before a different board. Friedgood is serving his 25-years-to-life sentence at Woodbourne state prison in the Hudson Valley.

The former heart surgeon was convicted of injecting his ailing wife Sophie with a fatal dose of the painkiller Demerol. He was arrested at Kennedy International Airport, allegedly as he was trying to flee the country with more than $450,000 in cash, securities and valuables from his wife's estate to be with his girlfriend in Europe.